days of old Harry Baillie, of the Tabard, in Southwark, no one had excelled Giles Gosling in the power of pleasing his guests of every description; and so great was his fame, that, to have been at Cumnor, without wetting a cup at the bonny Black Bear, would have been to avouch one's self utterly indifferent to reputation as a traveller * ”

The ancient inn appears to have been also called the hostel, (from the French,) and the innkeeper was from thence called the hosteller. This was at a period when he would be required by his guests to take and tend their horses: indeed, such would be a chief part of his employment; and hence hosteller actually became the hostler, or ostler, that is the horse-keeper.

It is now time to complete our subject with a retrospective glance at the ancient roads of England; although such is scarcely requisite to remind the reader of the present perfection of road-making in this country.

The earliest roads, properly speaking, in Britain were those made by the Romans; and nothing is more calculated to impress us with the ingenuity of that mighty people, than the remains of these works, which are continually unearthed in our time. Before the Roman invasion, the British had their trackways, which were not paved or gravelled, but covered with verdant turf. They were called Postways and Ridgeways, the latter because they followed the * Kenilworth, vol. i.

natural ridges of the country, or, instead of keeping a straight line, wound along the crest or sides of the chains of hills in their way. The Romans adopted these trackways, as far as was convenient for civil and commercial purposes; but, for military transit they raised vast causeways or elevated paved streets, and placed towns and stations on them at regular distances, for the accommodation of troops on their march. Our Anglo-Saxon ancestors called the old Roman roads military ways; the British trackways the country roads; and distinguished the highways by one wagon's way, four feet broad, and two wagons' ways, probably eight feet or more, which distinction, according to Mr. Fosbroke, shows the origin of our narrow village roads. We subsequently find roads made of mortar and stone; of wood and stone; and roads for carriages, distinguished from bridle-ways, or those purposely for horses. Narrow roads were called passes: openness in roads was thought essential, to prevent robbery; and for this purpose, all roadside thorns and wood were cut down.

It may, however, be supposed that in early times, the only roads, properly so called, were from one large town to another, with such cross tracks as infrequent communication would form. The first turnpike road was established by an act of parliament, 3rd Charles II.; but so insensible were the people to the improvement, that the mob pulled down the gates, and the new principle was supported at the point of the

bayonet. Long after this period, however, travelling was dangerous and difficult; of which there is a recorded circumstantial proof. In December, 1703, Charles III. king of Spain slept at Petworth on his way from Portsmouth to Windsor, and Prince George of Denmark went to meet him there by desire of the queen. In the relation of the journey, given by one of the prince's attendants, he states: "We set out at six in the morning by torchlight, to go to Petworth, and did not get out of the coaches (save only when we were overturned or stuck fast in the mire) till we arrived at our journey's end. We were thrown but once indeed in going, but our coach, which was the leading one, and his highness' body coach, would have suffered very much, if the nimble boors of Sussex had not frequently poised it, or supported it with their shoulders, from Godalming almost to Petworth. The last nine miles of the way cost us six hours to conquer them; and indeed, we had never done it, if our good master had not several times lent us a pair of horses out of his own coach, whereby we were enabled to trace out the way for him." Again, about 1746, a manuscript letter from a servant of the duke of Somerset, dated from London, and addressed to another at Petworth, acquaints the latter that his Grace intends to go from London thither on a certain day, and directs that "the keepers and persons who knew the holes and the sloughs must come

* Annals of Queen Anne, vol. ii. Appendix, No. 3.

to meet his Grace with lanterns and long poles to help him on his way." The Sussex roads remained proverbially bad within our recollection, and in an old rhyme is "Sowseks ful of dyrt and myre:" although, at this moment, one of the finest roads in England, (considering the natural obstacles to be removed in its formation,) or that from London to Brighton, passes for nearly thirty miles through a portion of the county of Sussex.

In 1754, improved turnpike roads were made, though not without renewing the opposition which attended their first introduction: tumults arose, and at the end of the reign of George II. a law was passed, enacting it felony to pull down a toll-bar; so difficult was it to reconcile the people to this great social improvement.

Of the state of travelling fifteen years previous to this date, we find a record in Dr. Cleland's Statistical Account of Glasgow; where Mr. D. Bannantyne states that, in 1739, upon two persons (named) making the journey from Glasgow to London on horseback, there was no turnpike road till they came to Grantham, within one hundred and ten miles of London. Up to that point they travelled on a narrow causeway, with an unmade soft road on each side of it. They met, from time to time, strings of packhorses, from thirty to forty in a gang, the mode by which goods seem to be transported from one part of the country to another. The leading horse of the gang carried a bell to give warning to travellers coming in an opposite direction;

and when they met these trains of horses with their packs across their backs, the causeway not affording them room, they were obliged to make. way for them, and plunge into the road-side.

In 1760, fifty miles a day was considered a prodigious rate of travelling, although to announce so important an event as the death of George II. The coach from Edinburgh to London started once a month, and occupied sixteen or eighteen days on the journey. A person may now start from Edinburgh on Saturday evening, have two spare days in London, and be back again in the Scotch metropolis to breakfast on the next Saturday.

We shall not be expected to describe the roads of England from rude trackways many centuries since to the present time, when road-making has attained the rank of science, and our roads are the marvel of the world. Indeed, their improvement during the last century would be almost miraculous, did we not consider that they have been produced by the spirit and intelligence of the people. Yet, as it has been quaintly observed that good travellers make good inns, so they are the cause of good roads being made; thus, the money they expend smoothens their route for, road-making is a more expensive labour than many persons imagine. The turnpike roads of England are twenty thousand miles in length, and upwards of a million sterling is annually expended in their repair and maintenance. Even the cost of converting Regent Street, Whitehall Place, and Palace Yard into broken